A few minutes after we entered the apartment of the dead man, I turned to Duncan, who was standing next to me, and said, “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Would it help if you stepped outside for a few minutes?”
I shook my head and squeezed my eyes closed. “No. When I come back inside, everything will still be the same.” I sighed heavily. “How do you do this?” I asked him. “How can you face this sort of misery, cruelty, and sadness day in and day out?”
He shrugged. “I hesitate to say that you get used to it, but the fact is you do. I think after a while you start putting up mental fences, little guards around your inner emotional self. You only let your objective self out; you need to keep your inner self, the emotional self, protected and secluded.”
I had opened my eyes while he talked, but I was staring at my feet, which were covered with blue paper booties. In my mind, I was doing a little trick I’ve learned over the years, something that helps me clear away the noise and make my world more manageable. It worked; the majority of the noises, smells, and sounds that were assaulting me moments ago dissipated. Slowly I raised my eyes to look at the hanging man again. Some of the noise returned, and I sucked in a deep breath and blew it out very slowly, trying to focus on each reaction individually. But the sight of that bloated, purple face kept triggering a veritable locust plague of reactions. I shook my head, sighed, and looked back down at the floor.
“Maybe it would be easier if we started with the room,” Duncan said, handing me a pair of latex gloves. “Look around and see if there’s anything that leaps out at you.”
I nodded, pulled on the gloves, and then shifted my gaze to the area behind Duncan. His partner, Jimmy, was standing there looking at me with an expression of impatience and disapproval. I knew Jimmy was skeptical about my ability to help out with this sort of thing, and I also knew that Duncan had convinced him to give me a chance. I didn’t want to let Duncan down, but to be honest, I, like Jimmy, was feeling pretty doubtful about my abilities at the moment, even on the heels of last night’s game success.
I turned my back on the hanging corpse and went back to the door we had come through moments before. I’d had an experience as we entered the place and I’d meant to comment on it right away, but then the sight of the man hanging from the stairway balustrade wiped the thought from my mind. Recalling it now, I decided to test the experience to see if I could replicate it. Turned out, I could.
“When we first came in here,” I said over my shoulder to Duncan, “I heard this sound. It was a swishing, watery sound, like clothes getting agitated in a washing machine, or dishes getting cleaned in the dishwasher.” I had reached the door and I turned back and looked at Duncan, making an effort not to let my gaze go toward the hanging corpse. “Can you hear it?” I asked him.
Duncan cocked his head to one side, closed his eyes, and listened for a few seconds. Then he shook his head. “I don’t hear anything like that,” he said.
“Okay, good. I thought at first that it was a real sound, something coming from a neighboring apartment. But I can tell now that it’s not.” I walked away from the door and headed right, toward the kitchen area. The sound grew in intensity. Then I turned left and walked toward the hanging man, keeping my eyes averted. The sound rapidly diminished, only to crescendo again when I approached the small bathroom that was off to one side of the entry door.
“I often hear smells,” I said. “I think that’s the case here, because I can smell something by the entry door, and in the kitchen and bathroom, that fades as I get closer to the victim. And the sound I hear does the same thing.”
Jimmy frowned and asked, “Meaning what, exactly?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, feeling as frustrated as he looked. “I just know that it seems out of place, that there is something wrong about it. I’m still feeling my way through this stuff.”
Jimmy rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. “Duncan, you can’t seriously believe this is going to be useful.”
Before Duncan could answer, I spoke. “If I’m interpreting the sensation correctly, it suggests to me that someone else was here in this apartment very recently. The smell and the sound that I think goes with it is strongest in the kitchen, bathroom, and by the door, and it all but disappears when I move closer to the victim. That implies to me that whoever was here with that particular smell on them didn’t go near where the man is now.”
Apparently, this interpretation made Duncan happy, because he looked over at Jimmy with a smug expression. “There you go, Jimmy,” he said. “If there was someone here in this apartment around the time this man hung himself, we need to find out who it was and talk to them.”
I went over to the bathroom by the entrance and stopped after stepping over the threshold. It was small, and most likely meant to be a guest bath since it only contained a toilet and a vanity sink and cupboard. As I stood there, I felt an annoying itch on the back of my neck, as if I had a tag on my shirt that was irritating my skin. I reached back but there was no tag, making me think it was a synesthetic reaction. Had something in here been moved, added, or removed recently? Or was the itch a reaction to some lingering odor? It nagged at me because I was certain I’d felt this same experience before, plenty of times, but I’ve spent so much of my life trying to ignore and suppress my reactions that trying to identify the cause now was hard to do. I tucked it away for the time being and stepped out of the bathroom.
I meandered my way toward the small dining-room table just off the kitchen. On top of the table was a drinking glass with a smidge of whisky at the bottom and a nearly empty bottle of Johnnie Walker Black. The glass rested on one corner of the victim’s suicide note, a single sheet of paper typed out and presumably printed from a laptop computer and printer, which were also on the table. I read the note.
If I could return the money I would, but it is gone, lost to a series of bad bets I made with a bookie. I thought I could borrow it, make myself a little profit, and return it before anyone knew. But it didn’t work out the way I planned and I can’t bear the thought of spending the rest of my life in some jail. I’d rather be dead. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I know it’s not nearly enough, but maybe the proceeds from my life insurance policy can provide some restitution to those I stole from.
I’m truly sorry,
The name Dan Thornton was typed at the bottom of the page.
During the time it took me to read the note, I heard an odd twangy sound like the strum of an out-of-tune guitar. This was a sound I’d heard before and this time I knew what it meant. Just to be sure, I bent down closer to the paper and inhaled deeply. Then I did the same thing on the keyboard of the laptop computer next to it. As I expected, the twangy sound increased as I got closer to the paper or the keyboard, and then decreased as I straightened and backed away from them. Puzzled, I looked around the rest of the small studio-like apartment in search of an explanation.
“Is there any indication our victim smokes?” I asked no one in particular.
The two men both looked around the room. “No,” Duncan said. “At least nothing obvious. Why?”
“Because the person who typed this note and handled the paper it’s written on is someone who smokes.”
“Are you sure?” Duncan asked.
At the same time, Jimmy said, “How can you possibly know that?”
“When I get close to the paper or the keyboard on the laptop, I hear the same twangy guitar sound I hear when I smell cigarette smoke.” I looked over at Duncan. “Remember? It’s one of the reactions we logged from before.”
“I do,” Duncan said. “And if you’re right, it suggests that someone other than the victim wrote that suicide note.”
“Wait a minute,” Jimmy said, looking suspicious. “Did you hear this sound over by the door?”
I shook my head.
“Why wouldn’t you hear it by the door? If someone smells like cigarette smoke, I would imagine you would be able to hear that sound anywher
e they were in the apartment.”
“Not necessarily,” I told him. “Some smells come and go quickly. They are easily dispersed by breezes, showers, whatever. Other smells are more ingrained, or perhaps their molecules are just heavier and as a result they tend to linger on surfaces. For instance, no matter how hard I try, I can’t eliminate the smell of lemons and limes from my hands because I cut them up every day, often several times a day. And even though I wash my hands dozens of times a day, the smell never completely goes away. It’s the same for someone who has smoked for a long time. Even if they haven’t had a cigarette in several hours, or even several days, the smell from holding so many cigarettes over the years lingers on their hands and fingers. I suspect that’s the case with this smell. It’s coming only from his—or her—hands. It’s on the things that he or she touched.”
“And this other sound you heard . . . ,” Jimmy said, still looking skeptical.
I didn’t know what point he was trying to make, so I gave him a questioning look.
“You don’t hear this other sound, the washing machine thing, near the suicide note and the computer?”
“I do, but it’s very faint. I don’t think the person who had that smell spent much time by the note, or touched it.”
Duncan said, “So you’re suggesting there were not one, but at least two other people here in this apartment along with the victim?”
“I’m not telling you anything except what I’m experiencing. How you choose to interpret that is up to you.”
Duncan could tell I had my dander up, and he placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Look, I know this is difficult for you,” he said. “But I truly believe that your experiences can help us interpret these crime scenes, maybe even help us catch a few culprits. It might take some trial and error to figure it all out, but that’s okay. The more we practice, the better we will get at this.”
I looked back up at the hanging man and grimaced. “I’m not sure this is something I want to get better at.”
“Understandable,” Duncan said. “I’m sorry, Mack. I suspect I may have pushed you too fast with this and, let’s face it, this particular scene is a grim one to start with. So let’s call it a day. I’ll get one of the uniforms downstairs to drive you back to the bar.”
“No!” I was a little startled by my outburst, and judging from the expressions on both Duncan’s and Jimmy’s faces, so were they. “I told you I would help with this,” I said. “I promised I would try and I will.”
I felt I owed Duncan my efforts in exchange for what he did to solve both Ginny’s murder and my father’s. I know he was just doing his job, but the way he did it had made it more personal, more meaningful. And then there was the little fact of my own apparent guilt in both cases, which at one point seemed like a given. Even I had to admit that the evidence against me had been quite damning, but Duncan had kept an open mind throughout it all, working as much on instinct as he did on facts. There are some who might say that’s not the best way to function in a job like his, but I disagree.
Granted, some of Duncan’s skepticism about my guilt stemmed from his attraction to me, a fact he admitted to during the investigation into Ginny’s murder. At one point, I thought his flirtatious manner was simply a ploy he used on women to get them to relax and open up to him, but over time I came to believe that his attraction to me was genuine. Lest I had any lingering doubts, last night had eliminated them, though I still wondered why it had taken Duncan so long to make that move. I also wondered if Duncan feared a personal relationship might cloud my decision making and the professional relationship he was trying to foster.
In addition to repaying Duncan for the extra business he brings me amongst the cop crowd, and the free labor he provides behind the bar on a regular basis, I have another motivation for wanting to do this crime stuff: my synesthesia, which has been a curse to me for most of my life. I’m far from being the only person who has it, but apparently my case is a unique and severe form of the disorder, something the doctors think might have been triggered by my traumatic beginnings. My mother was seriously injured in a car accident while pregnant with me and she was kept alive on machines while she lay in a brain-dead coma. As soon as the doctors thought she was far enough along in her pregnancy, they induced her. That’s how I was born, and a short while later, the machines were turned off and my mother was allowed to die.
It took me awhile to realize that my view of the world differed vastly from that of my playmates. When my father realized I was seeing things other people didn’t, hearing things other people didn’t, and experiencing odd tastes, smells, and sensations that others were not aware of, he became intrigued. He discovered my ability to tell when small things in a room had changed, to detect odors most people couldn’t, and to generally sense things on a level most people couldn’t understand. We played games for a while—the same sort of games Duncan had been organizing for me over the past few weeks—little mini-tests where my father would show me a room, make me leave, make some small change, and then bring me back to see if I could tell what was different. I was able to do it every time and, when I saw how it pleased him, I embraced both the games and my disorder.
Then puberty came and my hormones kicked in. This had an odd effect on me, ramping up my synesthetic reactions so that they were stronger and more frequent. As a result, my father’s intrigue turned to concern. A parade of doctors and tests followed, and the mental illness labels started getting slapped on me. I was saved by a wise and kind neurologist who recognized my disorder for what it was, albeit my own unique variety of the species. He said he’d never seen a case quite as severe as mine, and when my father told him about the little tricks I was able to perform, the doctor theorized that my senses were not only cross-wired but extremely sensitive.
In addition to the normal five senses, I also have a very keen sense of thermoception, making me able to feel subtle changes in temperature. If I walk through a space where someone has recently been standing, I can feel a change in the air temperature. The same thing happens if I walk past a refrigerator whose door has recently been opened, or by a door that someone has recently exited or entered. Most people have experienced something similar at some point in their lives, such as when they sit in a chair someone else just vacated and the body warmth of the first sitter is still palpable.
What I took away from my experiences as a teenager was the knowledge that my disorder was something to be ashamed of, something to hide, something to suppress. And that’s what I’ve done for the past twenty years: suppress, ignore, and hide. My father was aware of it, of course, and while the two of us still occasionally played a game of “What’s Different?” up until his death, for the most part, he respected my desire to keep my disorder secret.
That all changed when Duncan Albright came into my life. The discovery of Ginny Rifkin’s body had triggered all kinds of confusing reactions . . . reactions that I was then forced to explain to Duncan. But, in a way, those reactions also helped us figure out who killed her. That, and the fact that Duncan didn’t automatically assume I was weird or crazy, has made me more open about my disorder. And when Duncan proposed this collaboration, it gave me the chance to turn my synesthesia into something useful as opposed to something shameful that I needed to hide.
Not that I’m ready to go public with my ability. Duncan knows, his partner Jimmy knows, and several of my employees and patrons at the bar know. I swore all of them to secrecy, but it was like shutting the proverbial barn door after the horses have escaped. Word had already spread. Most of the folks in the crime games group know, but there are some who don’t. They think I’m playing simply for the fun of it and I’d like to keep it that way for now. For one thing, those adolescent nightmares are never far from my mind and I’m scared that someone, somewhere, will again try to declare me insane. For another, I’m not sure yet if my unique ability will actually prove helpful. Duncan seems to think so and that’s why he and I, with the help of Cora, spent the past mont
h or so cataloging the meanings behind as many of my experiences as we could.
All of that was in preparation for my first visit to a real crime scene, which is how I came face to face with a real hanging man. And thanks to last night’s game—or perhaps because of it, since it taught me not to jump to conclusions—it’s also how I became certain that Dan Thornton was a victim of homicide rather than suicide.
Chapter 4
The representative from the medical examiner’s office arrived and, with the help of Duncan, Jimmy, and two police officers who were there, the body of Dan Thornton was taken down and laid out atop a white sheet on a stretcher that had been wheeled into the room. While this was going on, I spent my time surveying the rest of the apartment, sorting through all the sensations I was getting.
“The chair is wrong,” I said to no one in particular. The others in the room ignored me, but Duncan heard what I said and walked over to me.
“How so?” he asked.
“I don’t think the chair was ever upright anywhere near Mr. Thornton’s body. Someone carried it over there and laid it down on its side to make it look like Thornton stood on it and then kicked it over. This carpet is new. If Thornton had ever stood on the chair, there should be deep imprints in the carpet from its legs. I can sense other irregularities in the pile but I don’t feel any from the chair legs anywhere beneath where the body was.”
“Interesting,” Duncan said, staring at the carpet with a curious expression.
“I don’t think he hanged himself.”
“Because of the smell on the laptop and the note?”
“And the chair thing.”
“What else are you picking up?”
Murder with a Twist Page 3